When I was little, I didn't smile much. Don't get me wrong. I was a happy kid, but I couldn't stand the space, dead center, in between my teeth. Yeah, I could whistle through it, but so what? That didn't win me many points on the playground in Medfield, Massachusetts. To me, it was the greatest imperfection. Straight-up ugly.

Family photo albums from those years show a sea of closed-mouth smiles. I can still hear my mother saying, "Uzo, open your mouth and smile," with her calm but firm accent. She, a proud Nigerian woman, always assured me my real smile was perfect, but it was hard to feel that way when no one looked like me. Even my own brother Rick and sister Chi-Chi had shiny white rows of Chiclets, lined up perfectly in their mouths. Understand, I had two other siblings with gaps. Theirs looked fine on them, but mine stood out for all the wrong reasons.

In the fifth grade, I thought my saving grace had arrived: braces. One by one, classmates would appear at school with a mouthful of metal. While I saw their pain (something about elastic bands that help shift your teeth into place just seems inhumane), I also saw possibility. This was my ticket.

I took the approach any 12-year-old girl would: I begged. My mother waved me off. I begged some more. My mother told me I was beautiful just the way I was (Liar!). I begged with tears thrown in, as an attempt at an encore (my career path was starting to take shape at this point).

Growing tired of my persistence, my mother sat me down. "Uzo, I will not close your gap and here's why. You have an Anyaoku gap, my family's gap." She told me the history of her lineage and how much of her family, extended and immediate, had this gap. It's a signature in the village she grew up in. People know the Anyaokus, in large part, by that gap.

They also revered them for it. In Nigeria, my mom explained, a gap is a sign of beauty and intelligence (Take that, Chiclets!). People want it. My mother desperately wished she had the gap but wasn't born with one. She continued to lay on the guilt, explaining that my gap was "history in my mouth" — but that if I asked for braces again she would concede with a heavy heart.

Naturally, I replied to my mother's impassioned lecture as any 12-year-old would: "So, can I please get braces?"

"No," she said, "You don't need them." She got up and walked away.

I kept hiding my smile in pictures throughout middle school and most of high school until picture day came my senior year. The photographer had me laughing during camera breaks, but when we'd go back to shooting, my mouth resumed its usual position.

"Why do you smile like that in pictures?" he asked. (How much time did this guy have for therapy?)

"I hate the gap in my teeth," I explained.

He paused, fixing a few things on his camera and said, "Really? I think you have a beautiful smile," and went back to shooting.

I'll never forget that moment. It's amazing how years of hearing the same response from family and friends constantly had fallen on deaf ears. But right then, I heard it and felt beautiful. A professional photographer with a fancy camera had complimented me on my smile. Gap and all.

Just like that, my teeth started to make regular appearances in photos. I had a newfound confidence and pride in my smile. And when I moved to New York to start acting, an agent I met with asked me if the gap was something we were "keeping" or "losing." My younger self would have exchanged nearly anything to lose it, but I said, "We're keeping it."

Still, I wasn't immune to self-doubt. I once allowed myself to be persuaded to get a fake piece I could put over my gap for auditions — the kind 6-year-olds wear on Toddlers & Tiaras when they've lost a tooth before competing for the title of Grand Supreme (cue dramatic eye roll).

For years, I kept the piece close at hand — just in case. I even wore it to my audition for Blue Bloods. But when I was called to set to shoot the scene, I forgot to bring it. After asking a staffer if I could run back to the dressing room to get it, she radioed the rest of the team, then said, "They say you look great just as you are." That was a light bulb moment: I'm great ... just as I am. I got the job — it was my first TV role — and that same day, I found out I also booked Orange Is the New Black.

Today, I play Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren. I see the irony of playing a character famous for an unusual physical characteristic, but it's an important daily reminder of how far I've come. She is perfectly imperfect. She owns who she is and is unapologetic.

As for the fake teeth, they're officially retired. I haven't really found a need or want to wear them. My smile makes regular appearances in photos, the Anyaoku gap on full display, much to my mother's glee (you're welcome, Mom).

So to her, my family and friends, and that random photographer who helped get me here, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU!

This article was originally published as "Mind the Gap" in the July 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan. Click here to subscribe to the digital edition!